


both your hands / in the holes of my sweater

by nutellamuffin



Series: give your life to music [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Author Is Self Projecting Said Mommy Issues, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Light Angst, Mommy Issues, Sharing Clothes, Song: Sweater Weather (The Neighbourhood), Songfic, Sweaters, That's it, enjoy this thing that's been in my drafts for weeks, i just wanted a sweater fic, its mostly just 1000+ words about wolfstar being cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:07:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28233651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nutellamuffin/pseuds/nutellamuffin
Summary: sirius black, and his sweaters.
Relationships: Sirius Black & Remus Lupin & Peter Pettigrew & James Potter, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin, background James Potter/Lily Evans Potter
Series: give your life to music [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2089209
Comments: 5
Kudos: 65





	both your hands / in the holes of my sweater

**Author's Note:**

> this drabble's song is "sweater weather" by the neighborhood.

sirius finds it funny that the only comfort item he owns is a sweater that used to belong to his mother, but it smells faintly of vanilla and times where the house was more quiet, and so he wraps himself up in it and goes to sleep. 

he can’t remember quite when he got it- he thinks it was the first (and the last) time he cried around his father, when he was six years old; _and orion had looked him dead in the face with his eyes as dark as his ebony desk, and told him he wasn’t to make such noise anymore. sirius had run before his father had a chance to stand from his seat, and twenty minutes later, walburga had slipped into the closet he was hiding in, and wrapped him in one of the sweaters that was hanging above his head._ _she had tucked him in after that, and never came to ask for it back, and so he kept it, hiding it in a drawer under his bed and clutching it when he woke up in the middle of the night._

if you asked him, he’d say he doesn’t have comfort items- that he doesn’t bother with such things- but if you pushed, he’d say it’s his leather jacket. but it only makes him cold and gives him about as much comfort as a wet sock, and so he throws it on top of his trunk and digs around until he finds a worn black sweater that isn’t sewn to match his figure and climbs inside. 

it’s made out of some expensive material that she told him the name of once, but he’s long forgotten it. all he knows is that it’s soft and warm and even though he’s stretched out the material near the waist that once pulled tight against his frame, he hand washes it every sunday so that come monday night he may begin to wear it again.

it’s a routine that’s neither this nor that, and if anyone has noticed, they haven’t said a thing. he’s somewhat grateful, since he tells himself that he wouldn’t be caught dead parading around in a woman’s sweater; even though he knows that it’s really because he’s cut off everything from his past life except this bit of fabric.

and so he sticks with the quiet  _ almost everything _ that whispers itself to him whenever he tugs the sweater closer around himself in the dead of night, he ignores what it means in favour of how the scent of better times makes him feel, and he hands-washes it with love that he hasn’t been given by the woman he got the sweater from in years.

it’s cold outside. it’s painfully, bitingly cold outside, and yet sirius abandons his robes for his leather jacket and clamps his jaw shut to keep his teeth from chattering, because freezing isn’t very punk rock. once he’s outside, he says the wind hitting him in the face and chilling him to the bone  _ is nothing big, _ and when james puts on his mother hen face he rolls his eyes. 

until remus calls him an idiot and takes off one of his four layers of sweaters to pull it over sirius’ head, and sirius can do nothing but let him adjust it over the bulk of his jacket. remus’ cheeks are rosy red to match his nose, and his fading freckles stand out against his bleached white scars, and sirius can’t deny how pretty he is with snowflakes caught on his eyelashes; even if the rest of his face is screwed up in a half-pout as he mutters about sirius’ lack of care for his personal wellbeing.

sirius can’t help but notice that this sweater is different from the other one, because this one smells like hot chocolate and fireplaces and cinnamon, perfectly unsurprising; but moreso,  _ familiar. _ it’s a soft cream colour with handknit rows and it’s nothing like how expensively impersonal the other one feels when he runs his fingers across the sleeves. he spends a good two minutes looking down at the material as if he’s been gifted fifty galleons until peter grabs hold of his arm to tug him down the hill; where at the bottom of it, remus has just thrown a snowball at the back of james’ head, and james has just been reminded how good of an arm remus has under all those sweaters.

the only thing is, is that once they get back inside, remus doesn’t ask for his sweater back. he collapses in front of the fire and james sits in between him and peter, slinging his arms around their shoulders, before lily comes over to slide in the small space between remus and the arm of the couch, (seemingly making conversation with exclusively him to watch, wearing a toying smile, how james pleads for her attention,) and  _ remus doesn’t ask for the sweater back. _

no one ever asked for the other sweater back, and so sirius does the only thing that feels right. he tugs it closer around his body, and makes himself comfortable in an armchair.

this sweater is  _ very _ different, sirius realizes, in more ways than he thinks. for starters, this sweater was given to him instead of stolen, (even though sirius will never allow himself to think he stole walburga’s sweater, he will never allow himself to give her that because it’s  _ his _ sweater now, not hers.) it was given to him with a lovingly hard expression and an affectionate grumble of  _ you idiot, you’re going to freeze _ and after this sweater was pulled over his head, he got to blink and see honey-hazel eyes with snowflake eyelashes looking back at him.

and the sleeves fall over his hands because the body it used to belong to happens to be the tallest boy sirius has ever known; a body belonging to a lopsided smile and a knowing gaze over the tops of textbooks and gentle, scarred hands that sirius wants to hold for the rest of his life. slowly, sirius finds himself tugging the cream sweater over his head instead of the black one during the nights, handwashing the former in the sink instead of the latter, and not caring about what this sweater is made out of rather than forgetting.

remus climbs into his bed and sirius can feel his nose pressing against his back, his arms slinging low around his hips, and he says something like  _ this is my sweater _ and sirius only hums. there’s something about the way he says it that sirius likes. it’s not a question, or an answer. (remus is not the question, but remus is the answer. sirius knows this now.) 

he turns around and tugs remus up to kiss him, and he tastes like the maple syrup from the pancakes at breakfast that sirius missed. “you’re cute in my clothes,” remus murmurs, and sirius kisses him again, sliding his arms around his shoulders and letting the sweater sleeves fall over his hands.

“you missed breakfast,” remus tries again, and sirius silences him by rolling over on top of him and interlacing their (rightfully named) sweater paws. “sirius.”

“mm.”

“there’s something you’re not telling me.”

sirius grins and kisses remus once, twice, and remus’ eyelashes flutter, which makes sirius want to kiss him until he can’t breathe anymore, and he says, “i’m keeping the sweater.”

walburga’s sweater finds its way to the bottom of sirius’ trunk, underneath quidditch gear and textbooks and ties worn thin, and it stays there.


End file.
